This year, gather around the family table and spread some knowledge about Thanksgiving! If you thought you knew all there was to know about this holiday then prepare to be entertained with these 5 facts!
The date of Thanksgiving was once changed.
Franklin D. Roosevelt once changed the traditional date of Thanksgiving to help boost the economy. He decided that changing the date to the second to last Thursday in November would extend Christmas shopping time. However very few states followed in this act. A compromise was then reached to hold Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of the month.
Thanksgiving greatly affects food sales.
This may seem like an obvious fact but when you get into the actual statistics, it’s quite impressive!
About 280 million turkeys are sold annually for Thanksgiving, yielding an average of 3 billion dollars worth in sales.
About 20% of yearly cranberry consumption occurs on Thanksgiving day. Nothing pairs better with Turkey than a side of cranberry sauce!
More Turkey is consumed on Thanksgiving than Easter and Christmas.
Popular opinion: The white part of the chicken is the best.
People enjoy eating it so much that farmers have genetically modified their produce to have extremely large breasts. The breasts of these farm animals are so large that they are unable to mate with others and are artificially inseminated instead.
Turkeys don’t have wings but have been to the moon.
Turkey was the first meal shared between Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin when exploring the moon.
Not everyone eats Turkey.
This might seem reasonable, but a good 12% of Americans do not consume turkey on Thanksgiving. Rather they indulge in tofu, tofurky, ham or vegetables.
-Emily
